Safety Occurrence Listing May Issue

[peter272]

Just waded through the listing, full of infringements, as usual.

But on page 14 there is an incident with a PA46 Malibu where the pilot apparently could not descend due to his fuel state.

The remarks were

"ATC coordinated for the a/c to descend as late as possible, causing increased ATC workload."

Is that an appropriate comment? Surely that is what ATC are there for, and being given a safety-related task is part of the job.

Do D&D ever record that an incident added to their workload, I wonder?

[Kiltie]

I surmise the inference here is that this should have been (or was) originally flight planned to be level at FL180 at GURLU, so maybe they're implying the pilot shouldn't have had a problem with that? Perhaps they're saying if he was low on fuel during the cruise he should have considered an en-route airport refuel rather than maintaining a higher level and getting in the way of other traffic?